The supply chain represents as much as 40 percent of the operating costs of hospitals, the second-largest expense after labor. The average hospital carries 8,000 stock keeping units (SKUs) of in-house inventory and owns up to 35,000 SKUs end-to-end. The supplies a hospital requires run the spectrum from medication, artificial knees, operating tables, wheelchairs, intravenous solutions, wound dressings to bed ...

Competition has always been fierce in retail. But as retailers continue to contend for greater customer loyalty and a larger share of the market, those in shipping and material handling are finding themselves racing to keep up with demands for ever-faster delivery. “In the last years, humans are getting used to a much higher level of service,” said Marc van ...

Pop quiz: A customer in Atlanta orders a tie from a retailer’s e-commerce site. One tie is located in a distribution center (DC) on the outskirts of town. Three more are located in the flagship store in New York. Which tie should get picked to fulfill that order? In today’s world of retail, the simplest answer—choosing the closest tie—may not ...

During the past decade public-private partnerships (P3s) have built some vital transportation and infrastructure projects in the U.S. Now a similar cooperative approach is being applied to an entirely different sector—manufacturing. Regional manufacturing innovation institutes are bringing together the resources of private industry, colleges and universities, associations, research institutions and federal, state and local governments in an effort to boost ...

Supply chain leaders hold the key to success or failure for businesses that want to capitalize on the $30 trillion opportunity presented by emerging markets according to a report by research firm Gartner Inc. The importance of supply chain management in emerging countries is reiterated in the findings of a global survey of business leaders for Deloitte Consulting’s Business Trends ...

“Polar vortex” was the trending term this past winter. But even as the meteorological catch phrase burned up the Twitter feeds, its frigid weather iced up the Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) and other indexes. Manufacturing was slowed by the record cold. Despite that, though, the current data has most business sectors either sitting pretty or on an uptick. U.S. economic ...

How many supply chain technicians do you know? No, this isn’t a trick question. Chances are you know at least one if you work in warehousing, distribution or even manufacturing. Ditto for those who work for a supplier of automated material handling equipment and systems. After all, there are more than 200,000 supply chain technicians out there. These are the ...

It’s no secret that the material handling and logistics industry faces a workforce challenge, both in attracting good workers to our field and in training them. MHI has been focused on this issue for many years, making it a key topic at MODEX and ProMat Expos. We’re also continuously building a collection of educational resources for both the secondary school ...

The U.S. economy has had a long history of ups and downs, most notably in recent times from the Great Depression in 1929 to the Great Recession in 2007. In between those major economic disruptions, there have been an additional dozen official recessions. Even between recessions, the economy is always rising and falling in smaller waves. Tracking the movements of ...

Sure, savvy business professionals always try to anticipate the future. But few come together with leading thinkers in the industry to anticipate the next decade. More than 100 participants—including end users, suppliers, consultants, academics, government officials and non-governmental organization representatives—did just that, holding sessions to discuss current issues and envisioning the future of material handling. The result is The U.S. ...